We Are Insignificant
About how none of this matters
Hello.
Sit back, relax, maybe grab yourself a cup of coffee.
Now that you’re settled in, let me tell you about Anna Mani.
Do you, know who Anna Mani is?
If you do, that’s great.
Chances are though, you probably don’t.
Let me tell you about her.
Anna Mani was a weather scientist, born in 1918. Long before most of us were born. She designed an instrument that went up in the air, some 35 kms, and measured the presence of Ozone. Remember a few years ago (well, many years ago), there was a hole detected in the ozone layer? Some of the data that Anna Mani had collected, helped corroborate this find of the hole.
Anna Mani routinely travelled to Antarctica on expeditions.
She’s setup a hundred and fifty sites to survey wind energy. She’d created a foundation for us to use green technologies, long before it became essential for us to do so.
Her studies have helped several scientists setup wind farms across the country.
She did all this at a time when it was unheard of for women to be doing anything but cooking food and cleaning houses, back in 1918.
Anna Mani did a substantial amount of work for the Indian public.
And still, almost none of us knew about her.
I worked in Tech Support, in Survey Programming, and then in creating eLearning Solutions for corporates. Whatever I’d done, whatever I’d created, whatever I’d achieved in my life, was forgotten three months later, or worse, a day later.
In the grand scheme of things, nothing I do, actually matters. Chances are, by the time I’m breathing my last, things won’t have changed at all.
So if I’ve lived my life, and I’ve done nothing of significance in all the years I’ve lived, what’s the point of having lived at all?
Nothing.
The answer is nothing.
Find out more about me at ashwinkalmane.com. I’m on YouTube, where I talk about comics at youtube.com/@TheGutterSpace, or about pop culture at www.youtube.com/@finalticket. I write short stories, some of which are at Gumroad.
If Anna Mani, who did so much for our country, has amounted to nothing, then I will amount to nothing, and nothing I do in my life will matter.
Chances are, nothing you do in your life will matter either.
Perhaps there are artists who make millions of people happy, perhaps there are writers, and film makers, and comic book writers and artists, and all the other creatives out there, who make your life a little better, and these are all noble professions, there is not doubt about it, but then what’s the point of all of that even?
Even someone like Mukesh Ambani, who has tonnes and tonnes of money, and influence, and ability to chance the country’s operations and direction, will eventually, have done nothing, really.
Perhaps you believe in the concept of being reborn. There’s no evidence to support that, but fine. Sure.
You’ll be reborn, and the cycle will continue, until the earth stops revolving around the sun, some five billion years in the future, and be engulfed by the sun, which will become a gaping red giant, and humanity will be extinguished.
That’s 6,25,00,000 rebirths, perhaps half that number, if we manage to extend human life. That is still a lot of rebirths.
Let’s assume being reborn isn’t on the cards. You’d then have 5,00,00,00,000 * 14,00,00,000 births per year. Which means there would be those many souls in heaven, or hell.
Heaven and hell are going to get real crowded.
Especially since we haven’t even considered all the people that were born, and died, until today.
My point is, what we do with our lives, doesn’t matter, what others do with their lives doesn’t matter. Heaven and hell are figments of old people imaginations. God and the devil are made up, again, by old people brains.
The world is whatever we make of it.
We have one life, to do absolutely nothing.
Or to do absolutely everything.
To make others suffer, or to make their lives better, so much better.
We can be happy because that’s what we all want.
Eventually, this is all going to end.
What you’ve done with your life won’t matter. The people you have loved, and the people who have loved you will also, eventually die. And everything you have thought of, you have done, and you have created, will be gone.
Whether it’s today, or whether it’s five billion years in the future, it’s going to be an unpleasant end.
With that being said…
I hope you have a good weekend!